


maybe it's time

by gurlsrool



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Coming Out, Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, just jack lovin bitty and their dog
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 06:07:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6183652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gurlsrool/pseuds/gurlsrool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I think I…” he bites his bottom lip and looks at Maple and the leftover blueberry pie on the counter and the quilt thrown over the couch and Lardo’s painting on the wall and says, “I think I’m going to marry him someday.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	maybe it's time

**Author's Note:**

> i just wrote a lighthearted future fic abt coming out to the media bc i didnt have the time to explore jack's anxiety like i wanted to but i def will in my next fic so stay tuned!! this one's for katie (icetovvn) ily hbd moon. tw for some language and implications of sex tht's abt it! title from a lyric of broken chair by chris & tom, a great song from a google chrome commercial!!

Jack glances between his own feet kicking up and down off the bathroom counter and Bitty, carefully squinting at his own face in the mirror, pinching the bridge of his nose and releasing it, and thinks to himself: _This is it. These are the fairytales my mom used to read me._ Out loud, he says instead, “I don’t get why you do that.”

Bitty drops down from his tippy toes and looks at Jack, releases a huff, arms crossed and a white strip covering his nose and god it’s so fucking endearing and he’s so in over his head. “I’m trying to minimize my pores,” he says simply. 

Jack frowns. Sitting on the counter, they’re about the same height and Jack toys with the idea of his boyfriend not being half a foot shorter than him. It makes him laugh, for reasons he can’t really explain. Sometimes, when he’s with Bitty, the good feelings just get to be too much and kind of bubble over. Whether he’s seventeen, holding a bottle of pills in the dark of his bedroom or almost thirty and holding onto a container of pore strips in their bathroom, his emotions are always too much.

“Don’t laugh at me!” Bitty squeals, reaching for the strips and pouting when Jack holds them above his head, “You may wake up looking like,” Bitty gestures up and down, “...that Mr. Greek god but some of us have to work for it!”

He reaches for the box again and Jack grabs onto his arm, pulls him into the space between his legs. He hovers his lips above Bitty’s and closes his eyes to get his heart to slow down, whispers, “I’ve seen you in the morning. Every morning.” 

He feels Bitty smile. “And?”

“And,” Jack presses his lips against Bitty’s, quick and tender and just short of enough before he pulls back and says, “I think you’re full of shit.”

“Oh shut up!” Bitty laughs, slapping his arm. “You’re a goddamned tease Jack Zimmermann.” 

“Am I?” Jack raises an eyebrow and jumps down from the counter, pressing the pore strips into Bitty’s hand and dropping a kiss to his neck before walking to the bedroom, laying down on the left side of the bed, Bitty’s side, eyes closed.

A few minutes later he feels the pressure of one leg on either side of him. “Took you long enough,” Jack opens his eyes, meeting Bitty’s gaze. “I almost fell asleep.”

“I’m not breaking my nightly routine no matter what you look like in sweatpants,” Bitty replies, leaning in, “But I’m done now so…”

“So…” Jack grins and thinks _this is it_ right before he stops thinking at all.

He gets the text that night, when Bitty’s pressed into his side snoring softly and he pulls out his phone to change his alarm so he can wake up ten minutes later than he was planning. He figures he deserves at least that. 

He opens up his texts and below one of Shitty’s incomprehensible rants is a string of question marks in the Falcs group chat. He opens it, stares at the pixilated picture of him and Bitty in CVS that morning, buying the pore strips and laundry detergent and dog treats for one long, surreal moment, and then, he falls asleep. 

*

It doesn’t come up again until a week later, when Wiles leans into his locker beside Jack, smiling. “You know,” he says, “I really thought you only listened to like old man music.”

Jack blinks back and a few of the other guys snicker as Wiles pulls up a video of him and Bitty, front row at Beyoncé. It’s during Drunk in Love. Jack likes that one.

He shrugs, “Everyone loves Beyoncé. You should really be concerned about the fact that I was out all night and still beat your ass in that scrimmage.” he slings his bag over his shoulder and walks out, not bothering to look over his shoulder as he goes.

*

“If you want to,” his father says on the phone and it’s clear to Jack that what he’s about to say has been carefully planned, “you should come out. You’ve established yourself as a good enough player by now.”

“Yeah,” Jack presses the phone against his shoulder and leans down to give Maple her dinner. She sniffs at Jack’s feet as he does and Jack smiles, bends down to pet her softly. Shitty had told him, the last time he was here, that he could be a little rougher with her, said dogs liked that but Jack couldn’t bring himself to do anything more than pat the top of her head lightly. 

“Jack?”

“Yeah, I…” Jack inhales, “I think I might.”

“Good. That’s good.”

“I think I…” he bites his bottom lip and looks at Maple and the leftover blueberry pie on the counter and the quilt thrown over the couch and Lardo’s painting on the wall and says, “I think I’m going to marry him someday.”

Bob laughs at that, “Well… yeah Jack. I would assume so.”

“Yeah,” Jack smiles to himself and turns around to the sound of the apartment door opening, to the sight of Bitty walking in, hands full of groceries and cheeks pink. “Yeah I…” he rubs behind Maple’s ear before standing to his feet, “I have to go dad.”

“Alright son. Just remember that me and your mother are behind you eh? In all of this.”

“Oh.” he swallows and Bitty tips his head to the side and Jack curses himself for being so damn transparent and wearing everything he feels in his eyes, “Thanks. I love you.”

“I love you too. Give Eric our love.”

“My dad gives you his love,” Jack says as he hangs up and moves to help Bitty unload the groceries. “We should visit them, when the season ends, if you can get away from the bakery for a few days. I mean, they could come to us, but it’d be nice to go back.”

“Yeah,” Bitty smiles and pulls out a box of whole grain cheerios and _this is really it_ , Jack thinks. “That would be nice.” 

*

He’s vaguely aware, from Ransom and Holster’s and Shitty’s and Wiles’ texts, that he and Beyoncé is some sort of internet thing. He doesn’t really realize it completely until the press conference after they lose to the Penguins, when Jack gets his third question about his father and sighs.

He realizes he’s not angry about it, like he used to be. He has a cup under his belt and is likely to get another this year, he thinks he’s proved himself. He’s just so tired.

Jack inhales, “My father and I are different people, different players. You keep asking the same questions and expecting different answers but you’re not going to get one. Now, if anybody has anything new to ask…”

The room falls silent at his challenge until a few moments later, when a young guy, probably straight out of college, raises his hand. Jack nods at him. “What’s your favorite Beyoncé song?” he asks and the room erupts into knowing laughter.

Jack chuckles to himself and says “Halo” after a long moment which gets them to shut up again.

“Uh…” the guy scrambles to get his thoughts together and it amuses Jack more than it should. “any particular reason why?”

Jack thinks for a moment and then says, simply, “Yes.”

He stands to his feet and gives a nod to George before he leaves. He and Bitty get froyo that night and Jack puts fruit on his and Bitty loads his up with chocolate toppings. As Jack sneaks bites of Bitty’s whenever he thinks he’s not looking, he briefly wonders if pictures of this will surface too but then Bitty’s laughing and swatting his spoon away and Jack forgets.

*

Jack doesn’t mean to come out in a press conference. He means to come out in the carefully worded press release he’s been drafting with Georgia and the rest of the PR staff for two weeks but when some faceless reporter asks him how he’s going to celebrate his second cup, he says, “I’m going to spend time with my family in Québec. With my fiancé. We’ve been before but I’ve never gotten the chance to show him old Montreal.” 

The crowd erupts and Jack’s anxious, of course he is. His heart’s pounding in his chest and there’s a moment where he thinks that this might be the end of everything but then there’s the hug from his dad and Shitty sobbing in his arms and screaming something that sounds like “SO FUCKING PROUD” over and over again and then there’s Bitty. Bitty, with a ring on his finger, Bitty with a smile in his eyes and his teeth, and a shocked look on his face and Jack holds his hand, closes his eyes, and feels the world continue to spin beneath him. 

“You did it,” Bitty whispers, “I’m so-”

“Yeah.”

“You’re… okay,” his eyes are wet and Jack thinks, _this moment alone is it_.

He smiles. “I’m okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> thx for reading ily hmu at gaysun.tumblr.com and give me fic prompts for these hockey gays!!!!!!


End file.
